What is your approach to system fine tuning with cables and cords ?

if everything sounds great its time to sell it off and build another system.

or….

if there is a roll of dough burning a hole in your pocket, its time to learn firs hand   just how much real snake oil, if any,  is out there and begin buying different wires.

before you begin, ensure you are using the exact same playlist for all of your appraisals.

speaker wires should be the first area for initiating the destabilization of one’s mind.

experiment accordingly.

Power cords next.

start at the source and work right straight thru to the amp and or spkrs if they too are active.

you should by now know every note on every tune compiled in your playlists.

Main ICs next if separates or various sources are on hand.

if you are on schedule its been about a year so you will know you are making progress if by now your cuing up playlist begins to nauseate you before you are finished listening to it.

next, begin appraising source ICs 

by now  sheer exhaustion  should have set in from  all the ‘cabling’ auditions you’ve  endured in those late night sessions.

being a  committed, or perhaps soon to be committed, audio nut,  to overcome any lack of sleep, you’ve laid in an abundant supply of Expresso and duct taped the  remote control to your hand to prevent it from further damage by hitting the floor.. 

next, its time to revisit those speaker cables.

the earmark of studius progress  will likely be projecdtile vomitiing during or before the playlist begins.

to know when  you are completely done use a mirror and examine your image. it should appear harrowed and thin with  dark circles under the eyes. hair should either be gone or greying and unkempt.  

for final confirmation,  open your banking app and examine your   account, it should look similar.

violin! 

finis

@inna

the approach I listed above is EXACTLY the process I’ve used since I found out wires do matter. naturally, I keep this all within reason and within available means, of course.

the colorful asides were some what exaggerated, but only slightly. any way you slice it, listening to the exact same tunes, and taking notes all the while,  over and over again,  wears on a person. 

extend this effort over the expanse of months and it gets to be a real chore and soon is only pursued by the most compulsive and obsessive sorts. 

once very good which usually gets escalated to ‘great’ once satisfaction sets in, is attained, the process ends.

without direct or immediate comparisons a subjective account,  over time,  tends to get inflated if there is an element of satisfactory performance routinely being demonstrated.

how many in this past time have said they love the sound  of their rig, yet have done nothing, or haven’t mentioned they have,  with room acoustical treatments. or have not addressed the bass bumps inherent in every room?  

the one item I did not express is ‘retrying’ a previous contender cord or IC after it was discarded as the latest asemblage is then in place. perhaps now, it could be the Rosetta stone that brings everything together revealing still better performance. 

I try to not  be too pedantic with my  verbage at times.

as for a purely analog sourced arrangement, the same process applies. get a base line somehow, and usually that starts with PCs. then ICs. However I get the impression with tTs some factors not overtly apparent if at all elsewhere, reside in that arena. cartridgesalignment. tracking. tone arms. . MM/MC. isolation. Phono pre matching, etc.

then of course there’s the record selection process too. which version? re-issued? which pressing? its quite involved IMO.

TT lovers have their work cut out for them.

BTW, immense satisfaction, and that’s what this is all about, can be had outside the vinyl world when things are addressed  appropriately.

 

@noble1001

good is always the enemy of the best, as I understand it.

despite what or where one feels the need to experiment with what they deem already quite good, or very nice, it just seems purdent to develop a methodology for direction, a base line from which to eveolve, and a destination that can be reached within the confines of the gear on hand.



@Elizabeth
FYI... perhaps some plants on that window sill could aid in defraction. ficus and spider plants go a long ways to diffusing sound or ameliorating reflections.

Elizabeth's path included a speaker upgrade and some efforts comparing outlets and powewr cords. among other things.


Inna says begin with the cartridge. fine. start there.


it seems prudent to say 'attack that which is blatantly wrong first.

thereafter, a consideration is that once any part of the whole is altered, it becomes the fulcrum all else is hinged to. once an accepatable level of higher performance is extracted, it must be revisited. IMHO.

EXP has shown me trying out PCs on the source, and powewr train, with power amp (s) being flung into the fire first is my baseline I'll let all else balance on.

I would not think to begin shuffeling wires, footers, platforms, etc., unless I felt the outfit was under achieving.

IOW, a 5K to 10K retail priced rig is only gonna yield so much regardless the tweaks, though these tweaks may very well satisfy its owner.

with a rig running 30K to 40K MSRP it might need some experimentation to bring out its best, and that might mean replacing one or more of the electronics for better synergy, and not merely fiddling with wires and the aforementioned bits.

the crucible is always gonna be the ear and mind set of the beholder as to thier perception of what needs to be chased, and for how long.

how many here are component junkies? wire mavens? acoustical treatment obsessive? Power conditioner experts? or rife for taming bass?

the gear itself is IMHO the main limiting factor.

in short, there is no etched in stone tablets plan for attacking and extracting the best from one's system in reality.

just get in where you fit in, or not at all if for you, good is good enough. there is no law against it.

@noble100

re low fruit

yeah.
Sorry.

@Elizabeth

thinking back on the instances I've seen Maggies on display or Stats for that matter I don't recall seeing much of anything placed between them and the front wall like I so often see with more conventional box speakers.

the idea of diffusion behind the speakers and or at first reflection points was info Albert Von S told me about a long time ago.

Albert treated a performing arts center in my area and he discussed his approach in so doing and how that outline works in numerous situations and applications with only the scale changing.

it was an enlightening talk, though Albert did almost all of the talking. a rule of thumb he left me with was shoot for a 50/50 room treatment, absorption and diffusion as needed. .

albertt said you could kill two birds with one stone by hanging 'carpet or rug runners' using standoffs from walls or dropping them from the ceiling and spacing them evenly or to suit along the side walls. kind of like skinny tapestries in what ever color or scheme imaginable. these would act as both diffusion and absorption being quite effecvtive.

I've since found I like to have the area surrounding the main speakers more lively and will use only diffusion around them. from the first point of reflection to the wall behind the LP when or where needed or desired,
as ˆ'm sure you know, all sorts of materials attack or address various parts of the bandwidth. its easy to find out which things affect what with little trouble.

In my room I ran floor to ceiling drapes a few inches off the front wall. these are fairly lightweight material and on the wall behind my LP a similar run of draperies yet these are far more heavy guage cloth.

initially I wanted Bonsai trees, ficus or similar plants strewn across the area and in the corners, but couldn't find appropriate types or sizes which seemed right so I went with materials instead.

even lattice work covered with color matched cloths could help keep the air and life in the presentation without killing the highs or mids much if at all.

naturally any and all of these notions depend on what and or how much gets used in this pspot or that place.

one can make wire frames from coat hangers in this shape or some other and adorn it with ????, then move it about to address ????.

making 'mobiles' and hanging them from the ceiling here or there might just do the trick at times.

it cost so little. only time and imagination seem to be the bar for DIY acoustical remedies.


@Inna

do the tiny wires connecting the cartridge to the outputs influence the sound much?

then its either attack isolation methods or deal with the only variables left on the TT. ICs, and or Carts.

are Stylus' interchangable?


some free ideas that I use on any number of devices is different kinds of woods as footers.

a fella sent me several sorts a long time ago. mahogany, Teak, Co Co bola, Zebra wood, Ebony, etc. all in the same sizes. an inch and a half or so in overall dimensions.

each one of these 'flavors' or types has its own contribution to the tennor of the audio's voice.

local hobby shops usually have discards of various wood types you caan get for free, then just slice em up to suit, arriving at the same overall dimensions.

Myrtle and Apple have long since been used under components, so should other sorts of wood as they all seem to have their own peculiar contributions.

the only rule of thumb I've realized is the denser the wood, the harder is the leadign edges of the notes. it tends to draw attention to what seems to be an increase in dynamics.

i think it has more to do with the inherent frequencies or resonances of the wood than anything else. its an interesting dynamic to explore and costs virtually nothing to do so.